Citation

Chaiken, Marcia R. Selecting Career Criminals for Priority Prosecution, 1984-1986: Los Angeles County, California and Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08980.v1

Collection of these data was undertaken in order to develop
offender classification criteria that could be used to identify career
criminals for priority prosecution. In addition to the crime records
obtained from official sources and defendants' self- reports,
information about prosecutors' discretionary judgments on sampled cases
was obtained from interviews of prosecutors and case review forms
completed by attorneys. Respondent and nonrespondent files, taken from
official court records, contain information on current and past records
of offenses committed, arrests, dispositions, sentences, parole and
probation histories, substance abuse records, juvenile court
appearances, criminal justice practitioners' assessments, and
demographic characteristics. The prosecutor interview files contain
variables relating to prosecutors' opinions on the seriousness of the
defendant's case, subjective criteria used to decide suitability for
prosecution, and case status at intake stage. Information obtained from
prosecutors' case review forms include defendants' prior records and
situational variables related to the charged offenses. The self-report
files contain data on the defendants' employment histories, substance
abuse and criminal records, sentence and confinement histories, and
basic socioeconomic characteristics.

Chaiken, Marcia R. Selecting Career Criminals for Priority Prosecution, 1984-1986: Los Angeles County, California and Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-01-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08980.v1

In the self-report surveys of defendants, multiple
indicators were included to assess reliability of responses. Data on
Los Angeles nonrespondents were also collected to examine the possible
response bias.